Trailer History

As a new AICE-Chicago Chapter Board Member in early 2001, I conceived the idea of having an editing festival for the assistant editors in hopes of generating grassroots involvement and awareness of AICE.

With the generous support and encouragement of the other board members, I asked fun fellow editors Katy Maguire (Optimus), Nadav Kurtz (Outsider) and Steve Stein (Cutters) to join a festival planning committee. Our mission was to give our hard working assistants an opportunity to edit, to showcase their creative storytelling capabilities and to meet other AICE members. Trailer Park was born.

We had a name thanks to Stein. We had a logo thanks to Marko Markewycz (Optimus) and coordination from Amy Hall (Optimus). Vivian Craig (Foundation Post) helped gather up many of our prizes. Jeff Landsman (Swell) and Greg Sunmark (Red Car) stepped up this past year to help drive Trailer Park forward with the on-going party planning help of Anna DeLeon (Cutters).

Next summer marks our 5th Anniversary of Trailer Park. Over the last four years we have had enthusiastic involvement from the many panels of judges, and fun, sometimes-trashy, and sometimes-mighty-impressive prizes. We've received letters of encouragement from Academy Award winning editors. We have seriously critiqued the work and fostered the growth of our dedicated assistants. And we have announced with pride at each festival, new chapters across the country and up to Canada that have latched on to the Trailer Park idea and run with it.

Clearly there have been many volunteers and contributors over the years, for Trailer Park takes a village to pull off and it's been a heartening ride.

--Kathryn Hempel, editor/partner, Cutters, Chicago